Kind After Kind

Christians have traditionally seen an imperative in Scripture which Rushdoony called the “image mandate” — that people should marry and reproduce according to their own kinds. But in recent years this “kind after kind” mandate in Genesis has been dismissed on the grounds that, as the Liberals tell it, it is a completely descriptive rather than prescriptive ordinance. Which is to say that if two things are biologically capable of reproduction, they are then of the same kind.

But this is a dismissal of the fact that the ordinance in question was leveled not merely as a matter of some mechanistic constant, but indeed as a command (Gen. 1:24) to the steward of creation — man.

Because Adam’s commission was to name (identify) variant kinds, prune back the thistles and vines from fruit-bearing trees, and nurture the telic order God had revealed in all the forms He had made: herbs of a leaf to their own bed, and the fruit of a tree to its own orchard. Yes, birds of a feather tend to flock together, but so too must they in order to exist; and to cultivate any particular strain, the husbandman must fence it off from others to facilitate its reproduction. In terms of creation and inbuilt teleology, description is consonant with prescription. Hence, intrinsic to the cultivation and maintenance of creation is a certain segregation of kinds. It was precisely with this duty of things to their respective orders that Man, as groundskeeper of creation, was entrusted. From this creation ordinance emerges the old chestnut, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” The alternative to which is disorganization, chaos, entropy, and death.

As it pertains to mankind, the principle would be punctuated immediately in God’s laying a visible mark upon the line of Cain to distinguish them from the children of Seth as “exiles” apart from Sethite society. What was this segregation of one lineage from the other according to observable marking but a demarcation of ‘kinds’?

But in the generations which followed, Sethites would violate this demarcation of kinds, spiritually and physically mingling themselves with the Cainites so that God sank the miscegenated world beneath a catastrophic flood, preserving the the last remnant of the Sethites, the house of Noah.

Upon disembarkment from the ark, Noah would prophesy that the lines of Shem, Japheth, and Ham were ordained to distinct and separate destinies (Gen. 9). In accord with what the Reformation Study Bible terms “the threefold division of humanity” (cf. Gen. 10:1-32), three corresponding continents were allocated to them — Asia to Shem, Europe to Japheth, and Africa to Ham. As we read, in the days of Peleg (whose name is derived from palag, which denotes division or separation) “the earth was divided” among the sons of Noah (Gen. 10:25).

Of course, the Alienists have recently muddled the clear meaning of the text saying, “It wasn’t ethnic entities which God divided at Babel, but languages!” But Genesis 10:32 refutes them directly: “These were the sons of Noah, according to their lineages, in their nations; and from these the nations were divided on the earth after the flood.” (Gen. 10:32) “From these the coastland peoples of the nations were separated [segregated] into their lands, everyone according to his language, according to their families, into their nations.” (Gen. 10:5)

Which is to say that while the division of tongues was the means of their segregation, the actual entities separated were peoples and nations. And the faultlines broke precisely along the tripartite division of humanity which Noah had previously disclosed as divine intent in Genesis 9 — a fact which the Alienists insist is mere coincidence. Or, just as often, they deny being able to see any such disclosure in Noah’s prophecy.

But this thesis that mankind is a monolith without subdivisional kinds within is, as they tell it, vindicated by a solitary proposition: that because Genesis announces all things to reproduce ‘after their kind’, and the threshold of reproduction we observe in nature is species, then kind is equivalent to species. And this, they insist, is the sum of its meaning — if an African Pigmy can breed with a Swede, they are the same kind; in essence, a biological argument for free love — if you can breed with it, it’s fair game.

Except the boundary between species is not always the threshold for reproductive viability. In some cases, hybrids such as ligers, tigons, zorses, mules, etc., are possible. But God’s law expressly condemns the cultivation of such hybrids when it says, “Ye shall not gender your livestock with a diverse kind” (Lev. 19:19). Every commentary and Bible dictionary I know of takes the position that this code declared the breeding of mules illicit. Clearly, since ‘gender’ in the KJV is tarbia תַרְבִּ֣יעַ(lit. to breed) and in conjunction with the word kilayim כִּלְאַ֔יִם(lit. mixture of kinds), the meaning is apparent:

It is indeed possible to breed between kinds.

Yet it is here expressly forbidden by God.

And the prevention of the phenomenon is delegated to men as stewards over creation.

The Alienist interpretation of ‘kind after kind’ is therefore refuted.

The second half of Leviticus 19:19 underscores the point — “Ye shall not sow your fields with diverse seeds”. ‘Sow’ there is תִזְרַ֣עtizra (the definition of which includes “to impregnate”), and ‘diverse’ is the same as in the preceding sentence, meaning “mixture or crossbreed.” And “seeds,” as everyone knows, is a concept applied to humans in Scripture no less than the plant kingdom.

This is not any Jordanesque “exegetical maximalism.” It’s the Pauline interpretation. For Paul exegetes the laws pertaining to livestock as primarily having to do with men, rather than cattle, and further intimates that everyone really knows this (1 Cor. 9:9-10)! No one would argue, after all, that Kipling was merely addressing horticulture when he wrote …

This was my father’s belief
And this is also mine:
Let the corn be all one sheaf–
And the grapes be all one vine.

If Kipling’s words here are transparent as a pro-homogeneity analogy (and everyone admits they are), Moses’s are no less so.

Of course, Leviticus 19:19’s prohibition of hybrids corresponds to Deuteronomy 22’s proscription against unequal yoking, and contiguously with Deuteronomy 23’s various prohibitions on “bastards” (lit. mongrels) of various sorts. And the doctors of the faith have been of one opinion, acknowledging Paul’s prohibition on “unequal yoking” (2 Cor. 6:14) to have been based on said laws. In fact, Paul treats the question so holistically as to invoke the initial division of creation — “light from dark” — as the context for why Christians should be equally yoked in their marriages: because God has communicated His creative intent for His people to affirm the natural distinctions He has set in the world.

Before Paul, however, Isaiah also interpreted the aforementioned horticultural texts as bearing on the question of race and nation, describing “the rushing of many nations” as planting “foreign seedlings” which spells societal destruction (Isa. 17:10-13).

Hence the refrain issued to God’s people in all ages, “Be ye holy as I am holy; be ye separate as I am separate.” Inasmuch as the Creator/creature distinction is inviolable, so too is even the distinction between the members of the Godhead: though Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God, we know their individuated personhood is an essential doctrine. Which, according to the thrust of the text itself, is the reason why peoples, nations, tribes, clans, and families are likewise segregated to their own co-ultimacies: redeemed mankind is designed for, commanded, and destined to, spiritual unity in ethno-familial distinction, and therefore some degree of racial segregation.

Apart from this vindication of a pluriform humanity, there is no coherent way to speak to the ubiquitous distinctions drawn between races and nations in Scripture. There is certainly no lucid address possible of Jeremiah’s reference to the Ethiop’s black skin as an analogy for evil (Jer. 13:23).

Apart from the traditional Kinist view, that as trustees of creation and our own familial lines we are obliged to pair kind only with like kind, we are left only with an incoherent lens over Scripture and natural experience. The miscegenationist ideology which has overthrown the churches in recent years presents an internally contradictory worldview, undermining all revelation, teleology, and logical operation of mind.

Ehud Would is a Conservative Presbyterian of Scandian-Germano-Celtic background and a refugee from the reconquista state of Southern California, who having recently followed the Northwest Imperative, resettled his family in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where he pursues writing, illustration, medical administration, and presides as an elected official.

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Faith & Heritage is a consortium of Christian writers from a traditionalist perspective. F&H features a diverse range of opinions among its writers, and any particular opinion expressed is not necessarily indicative of universal agreement among F&H admins or writers.

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Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. - Deuteronomy 32:7-8